144 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



you may have my picture then, even if it 

 is sleepy. Shall it be a bargain ? 



Thanks for brother D's good opinion of 

 my hymn. If he wxW look at the book in 

 which it originally appeared ("Good 

 Will, " by Revell of Chicago) he will see 

 that it bears no name but mine. Both 

 words and music are mine; and the initials 

 which have crept in over the left hand 

 side in some books are a fraud. 



The simplicity of Mr. Crane's experi- 

 ment, showing that bees will accept wax 

 offered them when capping surplus hon- 

 ey, is almost sublime. Sure enough the 

 yellow of rendered wax is very different 

 from the ashy white of virgin comb; and 

 a mixture of the two of course looks 

 speckled. Review, 114. 



In A. B. J , 146, H." Lampman gives us a 

 new section-leveler. It is a plane, of 

 which the cutter is home-made from 

 pieces of tin, and which works in a bot- 

 tom-upward position attached to a proper- 

 ly sized box. Apparently the section is 

 to be slid along directing slides; while the 

 plane remains stationary. The box has 

 hot water in the bottom, .and a lamp un- 

 derneath to melt the shavings. Comb 

 must be clean, dry and brittle. Looks 

 practical, and is said to work at the rate 

 of 1,000 a day. 



An editorial, A. B. J., 152, reports from 

 a foreign bee paper .some interesting de- 

 tails of special kinds of honey. Locust, 

 delightful flavor and good body, some- 

 times white, sometimes a decided green. 

 Apple, yellow and pleasantly aromatic. 

 Cherry, yellow and pleasant ( I doubt this 

 a trifle. What I have supposed cherry 

 has a cinnamon color and flavor. ) Chest- 

 nut, dark and almost offensive. Mustard, 

 onion and fennel, pretty strong of the 

 flavors we would expect. Rape, some- 

 times .so, but sometimes of fair color and 

 nearly free from turnip tast^. Heather, 

 reddish, powerfully flavored, and jelly- 

 like in consi.stency. I believe natives of 

 heather regions often pronounce heather 

 honey the best of all honeys. I would 

 remark that the quantity of essential or 

 flavoring oil secreted by a plant seems to 



be about the same whether the honey 

 secretion be much or little. As the hon- 

 ey secretion varies enormously we of 

 course get varied characteristics from the 

 same kind of honey — slightly flavored 

 when the flow isi^rofuse, and strongly fla- 

 vored when the flow is very scanty. The 

 amount of coloring matter in the honey is 

 also affected in the same way; abundant 

 harvests always lightest in color. Thus 

 basswood honey is sometimes yellow by 

 scant secretion; apple honey, from the 

 same cause, over flavored and bitter; and 

 rape often good by profuse secretion di- 

 luting the flavor beyond notice. 



If we don't mind, the Spanish will have 

 some support for their decision that we 

 are "pigs. " A. F. Seward of California 

 wants to know, in A. B. J., 158, how 

 much more honey he must eat to be the 

 champion. Editor thinks he is already 

 champion at six pounds a week. He 

 may have my claim. 



By the way I've got a bone to pick 

 with editor Ernest Root — two bones in 

 fact, for it is his second offense. Fine 

 and imprisonment both are usual, I be- 

 lieve, for second offenses of the same 

 kind. When the Court incidentally men- 

 tioned her pleasure to eat two meals a day, 

 and partake of six ounces of honey each 

 meal, he got somebody to add up the to- 

 tal, and then feloniously, and to the gen- 

 eral discredit of the Bench, nuiltiplied it 

 by three. Gleanings, 126. 



' ' Shame on the man who will rob the 

 bees of their stores and honesty too. " 

 Shot from Dan White for the fellows who 

 extract thin honey. Gleanings, 126. 



Aikin in Gleanings, 136, takes up the in- 

 teresting subject of the relation of weath- 

 er to honey flow. He notes an impor- 

 tant difference between local showers and 

 general rains. The latter usually close 

 the honey flow for the time being, while 

 the former generally do not. 



Doolittle says his goldens excel in the 

 white capping of honey. Gleanings, 138. 



Tarred paper used around sections 

 gives the honey a taste that can not be 

 gotten rid of; according to Gleanings, 141. 



